Precigen Inc (PGEN) 2020 Q4 法說會逐字稿

完整原文

使用警語:中文譯文來源為 Google 翻譯,僅供參考,實際內容請以英文原文為主

  • Operator

  • Good day, and welcome to Precigen Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2020 Financial Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Harasym. Please go ahead.

  • Steven Harasym - Head of IR

  • Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining us today. With me are Dr. Helen Sabzevari, President and CEO of Precigen; and Tom Samuelson, Head of Financial Strategy. Helen will provide an update on our pipeline and technologies, after which Tom will review our fourth quarter 2020 financial results. Following the prepared remarks, we will open the call to Q&A.

  • Before we begin, let's briefly review our forward-looking statements. During today's call, we will make various forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that these statements are based on current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those indicated by our forward-looking statements. Please read the safe harbor statement contained in this presentation as well as the risk factors contained in Precigen's most recent SEC filings for a more complete discussion of these risks and uncertainties. I will now turn the call over to Dr. Sabzevari.

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • Thanks, Steve, and thank you to everyone taking the time to listen in today. I hope this call finds all of our stakeholders and their families safe and healthy.

  • It is great to connect with all of you today to review our 2020 highlights and financial results. Precigen continues to execute and work to achieve our mission of delivering novel treatment options to patients with unmet medical needs. I'm very proud of our team's achievement during 2020. It truly was a transformative year for us in several ways.

  • First and foremost, we implemented rigorous health and safety measures to ensure research and clinical trial continuity. As a result, we were able to meet all of our stated clinical milestones during a very challenging year.

  • Second, the company successfully transitioned to a health-focused company. Throughout the year, we made major strides in optimizing our operations to become more nimble and focused, advancing our exciting portfolio of innovative therapeutic candidate.

  • Third, we fortified our financial position through a capital raise and a fiscal discipline. Tom will provide additional details on our quarterly numbers later in the call. Finally, we made meaningful advances across our portfolio, completing important clinical and manufacturing milestones that position us for an exciting 2021.

  • Now moving to a recap of our portfolio progress. The first, our transformative UltraCAR-T platform. As we started the year in 2020, our main goal for this platform was to validate overnight, decentralize manufacturing and demonstrate in vivo expansion and persistence of CAR-T cells. Based on the data we presented during our update call in December, we demonstrated our ability to successfully manufacture our UltraCAR-T cells across multiple sites and have shown robust expansion and persistence in vivo, even without the need for lymphodepletion in both the solid and hematological tumor settings.

  • Furthermore, we demonstrated encouraging clinical activity in our lowest dose cohorts, an excellent safety profile with no dose limiting or neurotoxicities to date in either trial. In addition, we aimed at advancing the platform towards becoming a scalable and commercially viable therapeutic option. The introduction of UltraPorator, our semi-closed, high-throughput system is intended to be a viable scale-up and commercialization solution for decentralized UltraCAR-T manufacturing.

  • UltraPorator includes hardware and software solutions and potentially represents a major advancement over current electroporation devices by significantly reducing the process time and contamination risk. This system was cleared for clinical manufacture and use by FDA, and we have started dosing patients with UltraCAR-T cells manufacturing, using UltraPorator for both our hematological and solid tumor CAR-T trials.

  • As for the trial, PRGN-3005 targeting onset MUC16, a Phase I/Ib trial in patients with ovarian cancer. Initial data presented in December for PRGN-3005 UltraCAR-T cells showed encouraging expansion and persistence after low dose IP infusion without lymphodepletion. In addition, 50% of patients treated, 3 out of 6 at either dose level 1 or dose level 2, with low doses between 6 million and 21 million UltraCAR-T cells with no lymphodepletion, experienced regression in total target tumor burden. And 2 out of these 6 patients achieved a stable disease according to RECIST criteria at the restaging evaluation.

  • Dose expansion continues in the IP arm, and we are looking forward to initiating the expansion phase in the second half of 2021. We have now received clearance from the FDA to initiate dosing in IV arm of PRGN-3005 Phase I trial concurrently with IPR. And I'm happy to announce that we have successfully dosed the first patient in the IV arm.

  • And for PRGN-3006, we announced encouraging data from the ongoing Phase I/Ib clinical study in patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia, AML, and higher risk myelodysplastic syndrome at the ASH Annual Meeting in December. As presented at ASH by our PI, Dr. Solomon, PRGN-3006 cells showed encouraging expansion and persistence in peripheral blood after low-dose infusion. Between 1 million and 29 million UltraCAR-T cells in both the lymphodepletion and non-lymphodepletion cohort as well as the ability to traffic, expand and persist in bone marrow. Furthermore, PRGN-3006 treatment indicated clinical activity as evidenced by reduction in AML tumor blast levels.

  • The potential strength of this platform was highlighted at ASH 2020 case study of patients with multiple prior treatment failures, where Ultra CAR-T cells persisted for more than 7 months after a very low dose, only a 24 million total UltraCAR-T cell infusion without prior lymphodepletion. This patient showed a decline in blast levels in blood and bone marrow concomitant with UltraCAR-T expansion and persistence and had a stable disease.

  • There are update in December, a patient who received PRGN-3006 at dose level 1 with approximately 9 million cells with lymphodepletion had an objective response and achieved CRi per ELN criteria. I am now pleased to report that this patient has subsequently received a hematopoietic stem cell transplant and is doing well, which according to Dr. Solomon is very encouraging outcome.

  • We are simultaneously enrolling in the dose escalation phase of both the lympho- and non-lymphodepletion arms and are on track to initiate the expansion phase in the second half of 2021. We look forward to our investigators providing clinical updates on these ongoing trials at upcoming medical conferences.

  • As we continue to provide clinical validation of the UltraCAR-T platform, we believe we are on the way to creating a tool for a precision medicine. Our goal is to develop and validate a library of nonviral plasmid to target tumor-associated antigen. Based on the patient's cancer indication and biomarker profile, one or more nonviral plasmid would be selected from the library to build a personalized UltraCAR-T treatment.

  • After initial treatment, this approach has the potential to allow for redosing of the UltraCAR-T, targeting the same or a new tumor-associated antigens based on the treatment response and the changes in antigen expression of the patient's tumor. We believe this is the only platform that has the flexibility to generate multiple autologous UltraCAR-Ts for patients; redosing, if needed, at the same time, has the potential to do so at the lower cost. This is a very exciting prospect for advancement of personalized medicine.

  • Now let's start to AdenoVerse immunotherapy platform, which is based on our gorilla adenovector library. It has a high payload capacity and provides the ability to redose both advantages to competing approaches.

  • Now moving to our first-in-class PRGN-2009, which is in a Phase I/Phase II trial to treat HPV-positive solid tumors under a CRADA with NCI. In August, we announced the first patient was dosed. And in January, we announced the completion of enrollment in a Phase I monotherapy dose escalation arm of the trial. All 6 patients enrolled in the Phase I monotherapy arm have received multiple PRGN-2009 doses. And to date, the repeated administration has been well tolerated with no dose-limiting toxicities. Preliminary correlative analysis showed that 100%, 3 out of 3 of patients treated at dose Level 1, demonstrated an increase in HPV-16 and/or HPV-18-specific T cell responses post PRGN-2009 administration.

  • Furthermore, repeat administration of PRGN-2009 and resulted in an increase in magnitude and breadth of HPV specific immune response. This highlights the potential differentiation of AdenoVerse platform compared to existing treatments. We were very encouraged with the preliminary findings and look forward to providing further updates in the coming months. We have initiated dosing in a combo portion of the trial, which includes PRGN-2009 and M7824. We anticipate an interim Phase I readout in the second half of 2021 and to initiate the Phase II portion of the trial in the same time frame.

  • Now moving on to PRGN-2012, which is our first AdenoVerse program targeting infectious disease. PRGN-2012 is an investigational off-the-shelf immunotherapy for the treatment of recurrent respiratory papillomatosis or RRP. In January 2021, we announced that the FDA had cleared the IND application to initiate the Phase I clinical trial, and we expect initial dosing first half of 2021.

  • Finally, in January, we presented preclinical data for PRGN-2013, our AdenoVerse therapy for hepatitis B HPV infection. This therapy incorporates novel HPV antigen design in a gorilla adenovector. The data showed that PRGN-2013 induced superior cytotoxic T cell responses against more HBV epitopes in mice than a competitor vaccine candidate and decreased plasma hepatitis B surface antigen levels, the key marker for chronic HPV infection. We are very encouraged by this data and opportunity to advance this program toward the clinic in infectious disease.

  • Now moving to a Phase Ib/IIa trial of AG019, which is based on our ActoBiotics platform. We have completed enrollment in AG019 for treatment of T1D in the Phase IIa combo arm of the trial. In December, we provided positive data from the Phase Ib/IIa portion of the trial, showing an encouraging trend in insulin C-peptide levels and ability to induce antigen-specific immune modulation following only 1 treatment oral cycle of AG019 as a monotherapy or combination.

  • We expect to provide 12-month follow-up data in the adult arm in the Phase IIa portion during the first half of 2021 and in the adolescence arm in the Phase IIa portion during the second half of the 2021. We are engaged with the regulatory agencies for the next phase trial design with the goal to rapidly advance this program toward the BLA.

  • Finally, for INXN-4001, our Phase I trial for heart failure. We have completed 12-month follow-up in the Phase I study with a solid safety profile and encouraging clinical activity. And as we speak, we are actively involved in partnering discussions. Now I will turn the call over to Tom for an overview of our financial results. Tom?

  • Tom Samuelson - Head of Financial Strategy

  • Thank you, Helen, and good afternoon to our stakeholders on the call. As Precigen transitioned to a highly focused human therapeutics company throughout the year, our primary financial objectives were to ensure that our capital will be deployed to our most promising product candidates and to solidify our balance sheet. We committed to streamlining our costs through divesting or suspending non-health operations that consumes capital, transitioning our 2 lead commercial subsidiaries, Trans Ova Genetics and Precigen Exemplar to be net positive contributors of capital and aggressively pursuing reductions of corporate and other operating expenses throughout the company.

  • We're happy to report strong performance across all these initiatives. From 2019 to 2020, we reduced our total capital requirement as defined by our primary operating metric, segment adjusted EBITDA plus corporate expenditures from $190.3 million to $84.3 million. Please recall that this metric, which is fully defined in our SEC filings, is generally the sum of net cash operating expenses and capital expenditures. This year-over-year change of $106 million or 56% reflects reductions in both continued and discontinued operations. Our discontinued operations include assets that we sold in early January of 2020, such as Oxitec and Okanagan Specialty Fruits, and operations that we suspended during 2020, predominantly MBP Titan. These assets required more than $80 million and $17 million in 2019 and 2020, respectively, that we will no longer need to support.

  • Among our continuing operations, we acquired $66.8 million in 2020 versus $109.8 million in 2019, a $43 million or 39% year-over-year reduction achieved without impairing the progress of any of our primary clinical candidates or platforms. Segment AEBITDA, our 2 main revenue-generating subsidiaries, Precigen Exemplar and Trans Ova Genetics, improved by a combined $14.6 million. We committed on last year's call that neither entity would draw capital away from Precigen and are pleased that both were substantial contributors of cash.

  • We reduced our corporate headcount by 31% and corresponding capital requirements by more than $12 million or 25% year-over-year. While we anticipate that our human therapeutics capital requirements will increase to support our growing pipeline of candidates, we will maintain strict discipline in electing which candidates to advance and remain committed to continued financial efficiency across the entire organization.

  • We're pleased with our current balance sheet strength. In addition to converting $56.8 million in total debt to common equity during 2020, we recently completed an underwritten public offering resulting in net proceeds of approximately $121.2 million. Pro forma for the offering proceeds, we began 2021 with $221.4 million in cash. We believe that this balance will support our anticipated capital needs into 2023, even allowing for focused increases in spend required to catalyze continued fast pace advancement of our therapeutic candidates. I'd now like to turn the call back to Helen.

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • Thank you, Tom. 2021 promises to be another transformative year for our company with many data readouts and trial initiations anticipated for our key programs. We have sufficient cash on hand to achieve these milestones this year and into 2023. We are excited to advance our pipeline of innovative therapies and technology platforms forward as quickly as possible, and our entire team remains committed to achieving this goal on behalf of the patients and shareholders, which motivate us every day.

  • Operator, you may now open the line for questions.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Jason Butler with JMP Securities.

  • Jason Nicholas Butler - MD, Director of Healthcare Research & Equity Research Analyst

  • First one, Helen, is there any more color you can give us on the patient with the CRI and the subsequent transplant in the 3006 trial? Anything about the dynamics or time lines or the response? Or anything about patient characteristics or tumor cytogenetics that could inform future development or patient selection?

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • Absolutely. Thank you, Jason, and glad to have you on the call. Definitely. So this patient is -- we are really excited. It's the first patient that was treated in a lymphodepletion arm of the PRGN-3006. And with the very low dose, to be exact, actually, it was 8.7 million cells that this patient received autologous overnight. Well, CAR-Ts that the patient received. The patient was dosed in fall, in October, I believe, October of -- November. And when we gave the R&D, the patient was in -- was not really yet, let's put it this way, followed completely that it was considered MLF, which was very close to a CR, but the hematological correspondence had not been evaluated.

  • And in January, the patient, Dr. Solomon considered the patient as the CRi, which is the complete response with the incomplete hematological recovery. And basically, in these patients, when they use that incomplete hematological recovery, mainly, it's referred to the platelet count that has not been back to the full level that would consider this complete CR without the immunological recovery. And -- but the patient, the bone marrow for these patients, the bone marrow blast has to be below 5%, and the patient achieved that. It went below the 5%. There has to be no blast cells in the blood, and there was no blast cells in the blood. And consequently, the patient was now basically after reevaluation could receive the bone marrow transplant.

  • And this is very exciting because this is the ultimate basically resolved for the patients -- these patients in AML, which they had failed everything else. And now the patient was eligible to receive the bone marrow transplant. And actually, the patient has received it and has been doing very well in follow-up. So we are really excited especially with such a low dose of our UltraCAR-T in the first patient that we have treated in a lymphodepleted arm.

  • Jason Nicholas Butler - MD, Director of Healthcare Research & Equity Research Analyst

  • That's great. And then just one more for me. Just in the context of the low dose, you're seeing responses already and the safety profile. Can you just talk about how high you may want to dose or how you think about where to expand cohorts versus continuing to look at higher doses?

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • Yes. So as we have communicated in a non-lymphodepletion arm, we are already in the third dose cohort, which is 1 million per kilogram. And we are obviously finishing that and following those patients. And then in lymphodepletion, we have entered to a second cohort. Currently, we are evaluating the third cohort, and we have to follow up, and then we make a decision on the AML, both from the data that we get from a lymphodepletion and on non-lymphodepletion at what dose and actually what treatment we will be going for the expansion.

  • Operator

  • Our next question comes from Ben Burnett with Stifel.

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • Well, first of all, Ben, I want to welcome you to the group. Thank you very much to being on the call. And as our analyst from Stifel.

  • Benjamin Jay Burnett - Associate

  • Great. Thank you for the welcome, and I appreciate that. Just 2 questions. I actually wanted to follow up on the previous discussion. Around the CRi that you observed in the AML patients. I was just wondering if you could maybe talk about some of those clinical events that you mentioned, the CRi and the patient being deemed fit for transplant. How did that correlate with some of the cell expansion data? Like when they went into transplant, do they still have CAR-T in their system?

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • So we have been able to follow this patient for a certain period of time. And there was a very good expansion of the cells and persistence in this patient up to the point that we had received the cells. We have not -- unfortunately, we don't have a direct cells before the transplant from this patient. So I cannot answer that question. But during the time the expansion and during the early months that we -- actually, we have received up to, I believe, at least 2 months after the infusion and we saw expansion, very good expansion and persistence of T cells. And obviously, also in the bone marrow because the patient carrying majority of the blasts in the bone marrow and one of the criteria for a complete response is that the bone marrow blast has to go well below 5%. And that's exactly what happened.

  • Benjamin Jay Burnett - Associate

  • Okay. That's great color. I appreciate that. Maybe one other one, just on the ovarian cancer program. So for this next update, I guess, what are you expecting to see in terms of cell expansion data as you dose escalate? And I guess is this read out a good proxy for what's happening in the primary tumor. Or do you think it maybe is a better proxy for CAR-T activity at like distant metastatic sites?

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • Yes. Excellent question, Ben. Actually, because in this first arm, we are infusing IP and not IV, therefore, when we are reading the -- actually the number of the CAR-Ts in the blood. So I don't think the kinetic of the expansion necessarily is being presented as well in the blood because we are infusing the cells intraperitoneally. Where -- what we have seen up-to-date and we showed in December, some of the patients on that is definitely the direct effect on the tumor lesions, which is quite impressive for these patients that they had upwards of 7, failure of the treatment prior, quite sick and upwards of some of them 10 lesions or more in various areas.

  • And what we saw was in 50% of the patients, 3 out of the 6, we had 50% reduction in the total tumor burden, number of CRs and PRs in distant, like bladder, for instance, lesion. So I think that will be the major readout. But still, we have been able to show in the blood that there is an expansion persistent versus in one of the patients we could follow off to 3 months, and we could see this out.

  • What is exciting, and we just started, and I think we communicated this in this call was that FDA now, based on the safety, has allowed us to concomitantly start the IV. If you recall, FDA had asked us originally to finish the IPR completely before we start the IV arm. And now we have received the permission to start the IV, and we were really excited. We have dosed our first IV patient, and we will be following. And I think we will get more color to the kinetics of the expansion and persistence in that way as well.

  • Operator

  • Our next question comes from Nick Abbott with Wells Fargo Securities.

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • We would like to welcome you as well.

  • Charles Joseph Whitesell - Associate Equity Analyst

  • Thank you. Yes. This is actually Chuck Whitesell on for Nick Abbott. Thank you for the welcome. And Nick appreciates that as well. I had 2 questions. One is for your AdenoVerse platform, specifically PRGN-2009, could you elaborate on how you're differentiated from other HPV cancer vaccines?

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • Absolutely. So first of all, our platform, the AdenoVerse platform is differentiated in a sense that this gorilla vectors, because there is no 0 positivity or very little, 0 positivity in humans, you can give them a number of times, unlike at 5 or other retroviruses or in general. Here, you can keep injecting, and preclinically before we had shown that you can expand the T cells in preclinical models.

  • So using our platform for PRGN-2009, that of the gorilla, that is the first differentiation factor than anything that is out there. The second part of this is really the antigens that we targeted in HPV. Generally, there are certain antigens that is targeted and majority or all of the companies, they use the same.

  • What we have done over the year last year was really expand the breadth of the epitope that are in our PRGN-2009. And what we have shown with that is that basically, we incorporated new parts of the virus basically profile that no one else really has identified before through our bioinformatics and incorporated in that.

  • And we were really excited for the first time when in JPMorgan, we showed that the preliminary data from NCI, not only the safety and excellent safety that we have shown with the PRGN-2009 in monotherapy, but also the fact that you can now repeat dose this. And exactly as we had predicted, you keep increasing the number of the T cell. And I think that is what has made a lot of difference. And the differentiation factor through what we have for PRGN-2009 versus all the other competitors.

  • Charles Joseph Whitesell - Associate Equity Analyst

  • Great. Wonderful. And my second question is, could you elaborate on your general strategy for partnering certain assets?

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • Absolutely. So our philosophy in regard to the partnering is actually we, especially me coming from a big pharma, you have to be aware that the asset has to be at a certain level of maturity in general. To be able to be presented. And also, always data is what it speaks for the asset, especially when you get to the clinical level.

  • So for the past 2 years, what we have done was, first of all, built a diverse portfolio and maximize our platform for bringing in the targets that we believe it has the high ability for success for the patients and then built a very solid preclinical and eventually clinical data around this. And that's what we have done over the period of time.

  • In regard to some of these assets, we know that, for instance, we have to focus on certain assets that we have in the clinic already. Some of the targets that we have, we look to partner perhaps in a preclinical state. In some other targets like our 4001, which has been focused on the cardiac field, and currently, our focus is all in oncology and autoimmunity, infectious diseases. This asset after finishing the Phase I for 4001, with a very good safety and very encouraging data for -- from the Phase I, which we will be reporting this year.

  • We saw fit that it's best for partnership. And that's what we have entered. And as I mentioned, we are in discussions for partnership, for instance, for that asset. So I think we are continuously evaluating our portfolio. And look at the various opportunity and the maturity of the data set. And with that in mind and also the partnerships that they come up, we would evaluate and strategically make a decision as we move.

  • Operator

  • Our next question comes from Eric Joseph with JPMorgan.

  • Hannah Temiloluwa Adeoye - Research Analyst

  • This is Hannah on for Eric. Just a few from us. First, for 3006, given the safety data you've seen to date, just wondering if you would consider any changes to the lymphodepletion regimen that's being used? And are there any interest in also be pursuing a more rigorous regimen?

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • Well, actually, we don't need to pursue more rigorous regimen of lymphodepletion, to be honest with you, because even in our non-lymphodepletion arm, we have seen a very exciting preliminary data. We reported on a patient that basically came out of the hospice to receive somewhere around 20 million cells. And this patient went on to not only expand these cells and persist the cells for over 7 months in the last basically samples that we had, but also the patient showed that in conjunction with expansion and persistence of the UltraCAR-T directly in a patient, the blast cells both in the peripheral blood and bone marrow decreased. And that was also in conjunction with the biomarker increase of porphyrin, which is directly -- it's attached to the psychotoxicity of the UltraCAR-T cells against tumors.

  • So right now, I think we have the regular lymphodepletion regimen, which is not an aggressive one. And we have an arm without the lymphodepletion. And I think we will finish dose expansion, and then we would evaluate that do we need lymphodepletion? Can we do without lymphodepletion? And I think based on that, we will go to expansion. So I don't see any reason for a more aggressive lymphodepletion.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from Arthur He with H.C. Wainwright.

  • Yu He - Analyst

  • I had 2 questions. First, regarding the 3006, could you give us an update on the follow-up data for the patients in the case study you present at ASH last year? And the second question is, considering you guys are to secure a decent cash along way, could you give us an update on your business strategies regarding Trans Ova and Exemplar?

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • I think on the patients in the ASH, I believe this I have to refer back to Dr. Solomon as a follow-up. So just I want to make sure that I don't give any kind of information that is wrong. So the updates on that patient. The patient, I can just tell you, as long as we had followed and gotten reports in R&D, which we reported at that time, so I will definitely look into that and get back to you in regard to that update. As far as our financial strategy, I think we have -- Tom can speak to that. As we have mentioned, we have a good runway now to 2023. And Tom, if you want to add?

  • Tom Samuelson - Head of Financial Strategy

  • Yes. I think one of the things that we talked about at the beginning of the year was putting all of our operating revenue-generating subsidiaries in a position where the businesses are flourishing and also contributing cash. And we're really excited with the progress we've made on both of them. Both of the businesses have, in our mind, have been performing very well, and will continue to do so. I wouldn't say we have any particular updates on the strategic side for both businesses beyond what I've shared though.

  • Operator

  • Our next question comes from Justin Walsh with B. Riley Securities.

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • Welcome, Justin as well.

  • Justin Howard Walsh - Research Analyst

  • Congrats on the progress. So my first question is related to the PRGN-2009. Have you put any thought into what signals you need to see to pursue various indications for the asset? I know the NCI trial is moving into the Phase II portion with the HPV-positive oropharyngeal and sinonasal squamous cell cancer. But what about the other HPV-driven cancers and obviously, cervical cancer is the top of the list there?

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • Excellent question. Actually, we are really excited about our PRGN-2009 AdenoVerse because, as you know, the first 6 patients in this trial were all comers with the HPV positive. So among them, we also had a number of patients that had cervical cancers. And in the design of PRGN-2009 and the epitopes that covers, actually, it lends itself to not just only head and neck, but all this.

  • And currently, we are looking at the expansion and entering to the cervical cancer because that's one area that's very, very exciting. And also, one of the things that I would like to mention in regard to our PRGN-2009, as I had mentioned it before, this platform allows us really to generate the specific T cells with TCRs directly in patients, and with the ability to keep giving this vaccine over and over again.

  • And by the way, this is not like the vaccines that -- when I was heading the vaccines were being generated. The platforms have advanced and especially this adenovirus platform is very, very unique in its capability to -- for the coverage of the payload that it has, but also for this repeated dosing that keep expanding your T cell specifics over and over again. And this allows sort of expanded coverage of the epitopes. So we are moving towards not only the head and neck in Phase II, but also in cervical cancers in the upcoming year. And we will be addressing this definitely in second half of this year as NCI will be reporting on the results of Phase I. And I would say stay tuned. It's going to be very exciting.

  • Justin Howard Walsh - Research Analyst

  • That's very helpful. And last question for me. So your vision of having a patient having tumor-associated antigen selected and used for treatment immediately with multiple potential rounds of UltraCAR-T is really compelling. Can you provide some color on how we might get from concept to reality for something like that? Would each combination of antigen expression on the CAR need to go through regulatory review? Or might regulators think of it more like a neoantigen approach?

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • I think this is exactly what you mentioned is correct. We are in discussions, and we will be further discussing the trial setup with FDA. That, to your point, it will be more like a new antigen, but with the difference here that you don't need to produce neoantigen, right, identify the neoantigen and then built TCR for weeks, upon weeks and multiple TCRs that we might need.

  • By having ultra vectors to various antigens that are, by the way, shared among different indication, for instance. If you look at the library of the antigens that we have, you can have MUC16, you can have mesothelioma, and you can have MUC1. Any of these can be shared for a number of indications across in lung, pancreatic, ovarian, bladder cancer. And you can see that you basically with overnight, you can produce any of these or combinations of these. And the important part is we have already gone through the manufacturing and have shown that we can do this overnight. And you see the next day and infused to the patient.

  • We are, as we speak, finishing our dosing. So we are establishing the safety in the clinic as well as the doses. And I think with the data that we have generated, both from the solid tumor side of ovarian cancer indication and the hematological one on AML, this is what we are using in our discussions for the FDA and then having what I consider an umbrella trial. That basically, you can have different indications coming in and then having tested or redosed or a mixture of these cells being infused to the patient, depending on the molecular profile of the tumor that they have.

  • So your point about neoantigen are correct, but with the difference that we don't have any of the obstacles that the TCR neoantigens have because we are using the library of antigens that are easily accessible through our UltraVector. Our manufacturing is overnight and we can manufacture as many as it's needed at the doses that are needed, and we can repeat those.

  • Operator

  • This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Helen Sabzevari for any closing remarks.

  • Helen Sabzevari - President, CEO & Director

  • Thank you very much. First of all, I want to thank everyone for taking time to listen to our call and for the thoughtful questions. We look forward to providing updates at the upcoming investor and scientific conferences and to meet with you in the coming months. We are very excited about our programs, and we look forward to our next basically interactions with our analysts and our investors. Thank you.

  • Operator

  • The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.